Page 107 of Ruled By Fate

Brie’s mouth went completely dry. Well, that’s a neat trick.

Greed bowed with a grin, then stopped short. “What is that?”

Faster than thought, she crossed the space between them. Cameron struggled helplessly in the background, chained to the floor by an unseen force, as Greed bent to examine Brie’s pendant.

Her face lit with fascination. “So you’re the one all the fuss is about.” Her green eyes danced with a spark of anticipation. “My, my, my. You’ve no idea the sorts who are out looking for you, little one. Dastardly fiends with horrible plans.” She grinned. “You’re actually lucky I’m the one who found you. May I?”

Without waiting for an answer, she reached out a finger to touch the delicate teardrop. A fountain of sparks and white lightning lashed through the air, and she jerked back her hand as if she’d touched an electric fence. There was a gasp of delight, and she caught her breath excitedly.

“Oh, it’s everything they say it is, isn’t it!” she cried. “That almost hurt! My goodness. What’s a pretty little thing like you doing with a powerful relic like this?”

Brie didn’t say a word. There was a chance she couldn’t.

Mammon rolled her eyes, then flicked her fingers up and down once more. Like a weightless doll, Brie slammed first into the ceiling, then the floor. She cried out in pain, and Cameron let out a stifled moan behind her, straining against whatever invisible force had him trapped.

Brie lifted her head a few inches off the tile, then started scrambling backward towards the atrium and Matthews’s crumbled form.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Mammon reached up and pulled a slim, serrated metal board out of thin air and started filing her nails into points. “Where did you get that marvelous little bauble? And try not to lie,” she added lightly. “It’s so boring.”

Brie continued her breathless retreat, backing away on her hands and knees.

“Are you trying to get away?” the woman scoffed. “Really?”

With a careless toss of her hand, she sent Brie careening backward at top speed, crashing through a planter box and coming to rest beside the corpse of Dr. Matthews. She blinked away stars and tried to pull in a breath, but the wind had been knocked clean out of her lungs. She clutched her chest and tasted blood as she struggled to inhale.

Mammon continued her slow advance, filing her nails all the while. “They say the key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught. I’d say you’re rather an object lesson in that little truism at this moment. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Brie could only gasp in pain.

“At any rate. I don’t know how much you overheard, but suffice to say, my patience has been tested quite enough for one night. And I’m not generally known for that virtue in the first place.” She tossed back her hair, suddenly brusque. “So why don’t you hand over your shiny little locket, and we can all get this over with? I’ve long wanted to add this to my collection.”

Brie glared up at the beautiful woman, helpless yet enraged. Her focus narrowed, and she felt something hot and powerful start to grow within her. Her pulse quickened, and her breathing slowed.

She stared levelly at Greed. “You can’t have it.”

Mammon smiled chillingly. “Can’t I?”

Horns split their way out of her forehead, silver stained with black. They curved backward and up again. She seemed to grow taller at the same time, her body elongating with an unnatural, animalistic quality. She threw her nail file without looking, burying it deep in Cameron’s shoulder.

His eyes cried with pain. Brie felt it in her very soul.

No!

With few options and even less time, she scrambled further into the atrium, groping blindly on the floor, before she found the thing she’d been looking for. Her body angled instinctively to hide it as she fumbled with the clasps behind her back.

“Why do you want it?” Mammon reasoned. “What use could someone like you possibly have for it?” She paused, eyes shining in amusement. “Or do you even know what it’s for?”

Brie said nothing. Another burst of laughter crackled between them, like ozone during a lightning strike.

“Keep the guardian in the dark. Well, it’s a strategy, I guess. The Bright Ones have always been notoriously poor at communication.” She clapped her hands twice, as if drawing a room to attention. “Come now, no more of these games. Hand it over willingly, or I’ll kill the other one.”

Inch by inch, the file started to drag toward the center of Cameron’s chest. The clear agony in the twists and turns of his body was unbearable. For all the things her angel could do, all the hellish nightmares Brie had seen him defeat, he was helpless against such powers.

She glared at Greed with a hatred more profound than anything she’d ever felt before, then looked at Cameron with a protectiveness that ran deeper still.

So, you can hear my thoughts, can you?

“That’s right, dear.” Mammon inclined her head sympathetically. “I know. It hardly seems fair, does it? But then, what in this wretched world does?”

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